This invention relates to digital cameras which include printers for printing images of a scene on receivers having preformed authenticating information.
Heretofore images of high quality have been produced by thermal printers. In a typical thermal printer an image is formed in three passes. First a dye donor having color such as yellow is placed in dye transfer relationship with a receiver and then the dye donor is heated in a pattern corresponding to the yellow portion of an image to be completed. Thereafter, cyan and magenta portions of the image are formed in a similar fashion. The completed color image on the receiver is continuous tone and in many cases can rival photographic quality.
In one type of thermal printer which prints colored images, a donor contains a repeating series of spaced frames of different colored heat transferable dyes. The donor is disposed between a receiver, such as coated paper, and a print head formed of, for example, a plurality of individual heating resistors. When a particular heating resistor is energized, it produces heat and causes dye from the donor to transfer to the receiver. The density or darkness of the printed color dye is a function of the energy delivered from the heating element to the donor.
Thermal dye transfer printers offer the advantage of true xe2x80x9ccontinuous tonexe2x80x9d dye density transfer. This result is obtained by varying the energy applied to each heating element, yielding a variable dye density image pixel in the receiver.
Thermally printed images are used in a number of different applications. In one of those applications, so-called xe2x80x9csticker printsxe2x80x9d are made on a receiver and arranged so that they can be peeled off and individually pasted onto another surface. However, these stickers are not used in situations which require that they be xe2x80x9cauthenticxe2x80x9d. By use of the term xe2x80x9cauthenticxe2x80x9d is meant that the image can indicate to a viewer or a reader with a high degree of certainty that the image has not been counterfeited.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an efficient way to capture images of a scene and print such images on a receiver having preformed authenticating information.
It is a further object of the present invention to use a digital camera having a printer for printing images of a scene onto a receiver having preformed authenticating information.
These objects are achieved in a digital camera including a printer for printing images onto a receiver having preformed authenticating information, comprising:
(a) means for capturing and digitizing an image of a scene;
(b) means for storing the captured digitized scene image;
(c) the printer including:
(i) a print station adapted to print the captured digitized scene image in relation to the preformed authenticating information on the receiver; and
(ii) means for receiving the receiver and for advancing the receiver past the print station; and
(d) logic and control means responsive to the captured digitized scene image for causing the advancing means to advance past the print station and for providing signals to the printer in response to the captured digitized scene image for causing the printer to print an image on the receiver in relation to the preformed authenticating information.
It is a feature of the present invention that a digital camera which is equipped with a printer can be used to print images on a receiver having preformed authenticating information in an efficient and cost effective manner.
An advantage of the present invention is that it effectively authenticates images preventing counterfeiting, misuse or fraud.
A feature of the present invention is that preformed authenticating information is formed in the receiver prior to forming a series of images. The preformed authenticating information is formed which authenticate images and this preformed authenticating information can be in the form of a bar code, an official seal, alphanumeric data or encoded digitized information.
It is an important feature of the present invention that preformed authenticating information is formed which provide preformed authenticating information in the support of an image receiving structure of the receiver. This preformed authenticating information can either be viewable under ambient lighting conditions which can include holograms or not viewable under such conditions. In the latter case, the preformed authenticating information can be formed of fluorescent materials which fluoresce under certain lighting conditions. A further feature of the invention is that the preformed authenticating information can be in the form of silver impregnated threads or magnetic strip material or in an encoded form that requires a device such as a bar code reader to scan the images and decode the preformed authenticating information. The preformed authenticating information can form water marks.
Another feature of the invention is that the preformed authenticating information can be embossed.
Another feature of the present invention is that it facilitates the design of images to be authenticated such as postage stamps, travelers checks, checks and other types of official documents.
A still further feature is that the images and authenticating information can be formed on stickers which can be peeled apart from the receiver and used for a number of purposes such as a postage stamps.